Puddles on a Rainy Day

Today was tough. Let’s start with the obvious: It was a gross, rainy, blah day, which means kids stuck inside with too much energy, cancelled playdates, the instinctive desire to whine more, etc… Then there’s what’s happening behind the scenes (and some iPhone pics for illustration):

C developed an ear infection on Monday night, which means we barely slept (the con of him finally being old enough to express his pain). What little Mommy did sleep was in C’s bed with him. I honestly am happy to comfort my little guy as he wakes up afraid and in pain across the night. But, I don’t fit in a twin bed with rails and 50 stuffed animals. And I don’t do spinning projector night lights. And we had to get up for the early bird walk-in hours at the pediatrician. So we were all a bit tired.

E’s also off her game. I suspected a few causes but finally figured out Wednesday afternoon that she’s teething. This is unexpected and crazy because it’s her TWO-YEAR molars (um, when did she get that old???), which are supposed to come in between 24 and 33 months (according to Google), and this babe’s only 21 months. So last night she was up. Thank goodness we’ve learned to keep infant Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen on hand.

So basically, we’re all just really overtired. It’s rainy out. The kids are working reeeeeeeeally hard to push my buttons tonight. Like climbing toilets again.

Anyone else picturing Sadness from Inside Out right now? I swear I’m not that mopey, just tired.

BUT, I decided to make something of today: I promised the kids that when the rain stopped, we’d go out and play in puddles. Which we did. Fresh rain puddles are like a new toy. So I pulled out the camera and captured a bit of our fun.

And with that, here’s some of the happy we found today (unedited, just throwing them up here before I crash):

We had a good 20 minutes of fun, until the wet diapers and undies got to them.

Oh, and I did pause to try out one pic in b&w. This one captures the kids’ personas–E running (belly out) toward her mama, and C in his own zone–so I wanted to try out the more timeless look. Unfortunately, there’s just too much in the mid-tone range in this image, so it’s not great… but something about it just speaks to me as their mom.

p.s. for those who are following via email: thank you, and I’m so sorry about my lack of final editing before I sent the previous post out. I was determined to hit ‘publish’ before I went into C’s room again and, well, lesson learned.